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Beazley warns APEC in need of revitalisation

AM Archive - Saturday, 19 June , 1999 00:00:00

Reporter: Peter Jeppesen

PRESENTER: Well, still in the region: APEC is hardly a word that sets the pulse racing. But in 10 years, Australia's regional inspiration has had some success as an international forum for trade liberalisation and development. Last night the Opposition Leader Kim Beazley delivered the inaugural APEC lecture in Melbourne, and for his trouble, was hit in the face by a custard pie thrown by a lone protester. But during the more serious side of his speech, Mr Beazley warned that APEC was losing its momentum, and Australia had to take the initiative to revitalise the forum. Here's Peter Jefferson.

PETER JEPPESEN: The 18 Pacific Rim countries that comprise APEC are, according to Mr Beazley, one of Australia's most significant diplomatic achievements, and Australian APEC study chairman Alan Oxley says APEC is the only regional trade forum of its kind that Australia has.

ALAN OXLEY: APEC is critical because it gives Australia a formal linkage into the thinking and the policy work of the countries in the region which otherwise we would not have. Now, Australia is able to work with other countries to push issues of common interest like trade liberalisation, like improving markets, like better capital flows.

PETER JEPPESEN: But Kim Beazley is concerned that at the moment APEC is seriously losing momentum.

KIM BEAZLEY: We are a middle-level power that survives by the freest trade - the most liberal trade environment that we can get internationally. We don't have a big domestic economy. We need it. Therefore we have a capacity to drive the agenda: (a) we need to because we've got an interest, (b) we may well be better trusted than the big blocks or the big countries like the United States. So if we don't drive it, no-one will. That's the truth of the matter. That's been our experience with APEC in the past. It's important to us. It's important to Australia's international standing; it's important to Australia's economy; it is a ship, if you like, properly used by Australia within the WTO - a forum in which we could be easily lost. So there are a lot these things that go together with the value of APEC to us. Unfortunately of course, APEC may not appear as significant to others.

PETER JEPPESEN: You've warned tonight that it could be-that it's been wound down or been diminished in its importance. What's the concern there?

KIM BEAZLEY: That is without question the case. That's been the case really for the last three years when people-the agenda on all fronts has basically stalled, and attempts to introduce new elements to the agenda have really not got terribly far, you know. There's transparency in that.

PETER JEPPESEN: Who's responsible for that, Mr Beazley?

KIM BEAZLEY: Well, in the final analysis, the Government is. And-

PETER JEPPESEN: What, are you saying they don't want APEC?

KIM BEAZLEY: Well I don't say that. They turn up. They do the-they go through the routines. I think, frankly, this government's stripped itself of the capacity to take initiatives, partly by its own ideological formulations, but probably even more significantly by its denuding of foreign affairs and trade.